For all the consternation that comes with the U.S. men's basketball team, it's easy to forget just how transcendent it can be when everything's clicking. That was very much the case in the Olympic opener against Serbia on Sunday, a rollicking 110-84 win over Nikola Jokic and Serbia that featured five Americans in double figures and a blistering 62% mark from the field.
A slow start
Not that it started out that way. The U.S. looked lost in the early going, with more turnovers (two) than made shots (one) producing a 10-2 deficit before even three minutes had elapsed. But two 3s from Devin Booker helped settle things down, and soon enough the American bench was doing what it's done through the summer: dominate.
Welcome back, Kevin Durant
This, more than anything else, is what makes the U.S. such a tough out in these tournaments. Serbia, in a phenomenon painfully recognizable to any Denver Nuggets fan, had no answers when Jokic hit the bench. The Serbians led, 20-14, when Jokic came out for his customary late-first-quarter break. By the time he returned, at the 8:04 mark of the second, the U.S. led 30-23 — a 13-point swing from which Serbia never recovered. Remarkably, Jokic finished with a plus/minus of 0 in a game his team lost by 26, putting up a typically efficient 20 points with eight assists and five rebounds.
The Americans, meanwhile, could simply sub in Kevin Durant. After missing all five pre-Games tune-ups with a calf strain, KD was finally cleared for action on Sunday, and he looked like he'd never left: Durant made all eight of his shots in the first half, starting with a couple catch-and-shoot 3s and ending with some truly audacious contested jumpers.
"It's the best game we've played so far [including pre-Olympic exhibition games]," LeBron James said. "I thought they tested us early. The second group came in, gave us a big lift."
Together with the Anthony Edwards, Derrick White and the ultra-switchable big man duo of Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo, the U.S. bench mob rolled, scoring 33 points in the second quarter — remember, international quarters are only 10 minutes long — and turning an early deficit into a nine-point lead at halftime.
“We're talking about Kevin Durant as the sixth man," Steph Curry said afterward. "It tells you how good this team can be. It's just a matter of everybody being ready to do what you're asked to do because every game is going to be a little different. From team to team it requires a different strategy, and you can pick any of the five out of us 12 and it's an All-Star, Hall of Fame lineup out there."
LeBron delivers vintage performance
From there, the rest was academic, the U.S. pressing their athleticism advantage throughout the second half and using defensive ball pressure to get out in transition. Serbia scored just 35 points in the second half, a flurry of turnovers creating room for James and Edwards to turn things into a track meet.
"You don't know who's gonna get on a heater," Curry said. "Could be KD tonight, it could be somebody else Wednesday. That's the beauty of this team. So we have to be able to focus on defense. If we play defense like we did in the second half, we're going to be tough to beat no matter who we play, and then the rest will take care of itself."
Durant finished with a team-high 23 despite not making a field goal in the second half. Edwards was cool, calm and in command of the offense in the half-court, adding 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting.
And James was an absolute freight train with the ball in his hands, nearly matching Durant with 21 points on 8-for-9 shooting while adding nine assists and seven rebounds.
Questions remain
It's hard to imagine a better start for Team USA, but with a team this talented, there will always be nits to pick.
Two that stand out from Sunday: Joel Embiid, who was physically outmatched by Jokic and finished with four points, two rebounds and a team-worst -8 plus/minus, once again throwing the starting center spot into question. It'll be awfully tough for Kerr to break up the Davis/Adebayo pairing, and this was always going to be a particularly tough matchup for Embiid, but it's a step backward for a player who seemed to finally be rounding into form after dealing with knee problems all spring.
The other: Jayson Tatum, curiously one of two players (along with Tyrese Haliburton) who didn't see any game action. Kerr downplayed it after the game, explaining that he wanted to work Durant back into the rotation.
"It's really hard in a 40-minute game to play more than 10 guys," Kerr said. "And with Kevin coming back, I just went to the combinations I felt would make the most sense. Jayson is first team All-NBA three years in a row. He's one of the best players in the world. So I went with the combinations I felt like would make sense, and talked to him. And he's incredibly professional. That's tonight. It doesn't mean it's going to stay that way the rest of the tournament, so he'll make his mark."
That may well be, but it also bears noting how much more fluid the U.S. looked with Durant in Tatum's place; it's possible that, with enough shotmaking already in thet lineup, someone who plays better off the ball might be a better fit moving forward.
When does the U.S. men's basketball team play next?
The next game comes on Wednesday, July 31, with a matchup against the same South Sudan team that nearly upset them in London last weekend. For Serbia, meanwhile, a date with Puerto Rico has become something of a must-win.